Semua Bab Till Betrayal Do Us Part: Ex-Husband, Ex-Heartbreak: Bab 151 - Bab 160

Estella / AmeliaFive years later4:02 PM.I drum my fingers against the polished mahogany table, staring at my phone. No missed calls. No texts. Nothing from Aunt Eleanor except radio silence.The café is nearly empty, most of the lunch crowd long gone. A few servers wipe down tables, shooting me sympathetic glances. I've been here long enough that they probably think I'm being stood up.They're not wrong.I check my schedule – one meeting pushed back, two client calls rescheduled, all because Aunt Eleanor insisted this lunch was "absolutely crucial." Now here I am, sitting alone like an idiot while my work piles up back at the office. Arielle's ballet recital is at seven, and I still need to pick up her costume from the cleaners.The waitress approaches again, her smile gentle. "Can I get you anything while you wait?""No, thank you." I gather my purse, done wasting time. "Actually, I was just—""Excuse me." A deep voice cuts through my words. "This is my table."I look up to find

Amelia / Estella The drive home is quick at this hour, the road winding through the vineyards that have sustained and built the wealth owned by the Alvarez family for generations. The vines are heavy with fruit, some almost ready for harvest. Sometimes I walk through them early in the morning, before Arielle and the whole house wakes up, trying to jog loose some memory of doing this as a child. It never works. The gates of the villa swing open automatically as I approach, lights welcoming me home. It's a beautiful house – all warm stone and climbing roses, with a view of the mountains in the distance. The kind of place little girls dream of growing up in. The kind of place I must have grown up in, though I don't remember a single birthday or Christmas or ordinary Tuesday within these walls. Eleanor meets me at the door, dressed elegantly as always in her silk loungewear. Her silver hair catches the light from the chandelier, making her look like some sort of fairy godmother. W

Arielle's in the stuffed animal section, curled up in the reading nook. Her eyes are red but defiant when I sit beside her."I'm not apologizing.""Yes, you are." I brush a tear from her cheek. "That was incredibly rude.""He deserved it." She hugs her legs tighter. "I don't want a new daddy."The words hit like a punch to the gut. "Baby...""Everyone at school has one. But I don't need one. I have you and Nana and that's enough."I pull her into my lap, swan and all. "You're right. We're enough, just us. But that doesn't mean you get to be mean to people.""He's going to keep coming around." She burrows into my neck. "And then you'll like him better than me.""Hey." I tilt her chin up. "No one in this world could ever be more important to me than you. You're my heart walking around outside my body.""Promise?""Cross my heart and hope to die."She considers this solemnly. "Stick a needle in your eye?""Obviously." I tickle her side, drawing out a reluctant giggle. "Now, about that ap

"I'm so sorry!" I push through the last row of onlookers, grabbing Arielle's shoulders and pulling her back. "I’m so sorry. It was an accident."Julia looks down at the ice cream stain spreading across the front of her Valentino dress, then at Arielle's stricken face."Do you have any idea what this dress cost?" Her voice rises, distress overriding the social niceties. "This is supposed to be the most important moment of my life, and now it's ruined!""I'm sorry," Arielle whispers, lower lip trembling. "I didn't mean to."Mark steps forward, looking torn between comforting his fiancée and diffusing the situation. "Babe, it's just a dress. The kid didn't mean it. We can get it dry cleaned.""Just a dress?" Julia whirls on him. "This is Valentino! And now every photo, every video of our engagement has this—this disaster!""Hey," I step between her and Arielle, whose tears are now falling freely. "I understand you're upset, but she's just a child. And like I said it was an accident.""We

Alejandro I stormed into my penthouse with Raul following after me, throwing my suit jacket across the room where it landed in a heap of already piling clothes on the Italian leather sofa. The housekeeper isn’t coming in until the weekend. The whiskey bottle called to me from the bar, all I wanted to do was head over there and drown this thoughts down, but for once, I ignored it. I needed my head clear for this."Pull up everything on every available database." I paced across the hardwood floors while Raul sat and set up his laptop at my dining table. "And I mean everything."I couldn’t remember the drive from the office and how I made it home. It had been a blur of several thoughts. My mind kept replaying that video on loop—the woman with Estella's face, the little girl with my eyes. The ghost of my wife was haunting me in flesh and blood.Raul's fingers flew across the keyboard. "I've accessed databases that would land us both in federal prison, but there's barely anything on Ameli